Review: SouthCoast Chamber Music Society shows maturity

Wednesday

Mar 13, 2013 at 12:01 AM

With youthful quartets by Mendelssohn and Britten, and a forceful middle period work by Beethoven, the South Coast Chamber Music Society showed that maturity in expression has no age requirement Saturday evening at St. Gabriel's Church in Marion. In all three works, unique forms and bold technical challenges were the norm, explored with robust intensity by the players.

KEITH POWERS

With youthful quartets by Mendelssohn and Britten, and a forceful middle period work by Beethoven, the South Coast Chamber Music Society showed that maturity in expression has no age requirement Saturday evening at St. Gabriel's Church in Marion. In all three works, unique forms and bold technical challenges were the norm, explored with robust intensity by the players.

It's a commonplace to state that Mendelssohn, at 38, died young. Fact is, Mendelssohn the composer was never young. At 18, when he wrote his Op. 13 string quartet, he was already the creator of major chamber works and string repertory, and, of more relevance for this piece, had absorbed Beethoven's late quartets with interest — at a time when the musical world thought them unlistenable.

The teenage Mendelssohn peppered his A major quartet with references subtle and not-so-subtle to each of Beethoven's late works. The fugue in the slow movement, the quote of his own song (entitled "Is it true?") in reference to Beethoven's enigmatic manuscript note "Muss es sein" ("Must it be?") in his Op. 135 quartet — these are just a few of the appreciate nods Mendelssohn sent to the older composer. More importantly, the young Mendelssohn captured the spirit of the late-game Beethoven, creating a powerful work of conflicting emotions, all filtered through complex and compelling music.

The quartet (Heidi Braun-Hill and Piotr Buczek, violins; Don Krishnaswami, viola; Timothy Roberts, cello) played boldly, as the music deserved. Intonation seemed troubled, especially in the high strings, in the slow first movement, but everyone has to warm up. The "Is it true?" melody, which violist Krishnaswami demonstrated before the work, begins the quartet as a three-note motive, and haunts it throughout.

From a technical point of view, the unusual arrangement of the movements, with a slow beginning and ending — a virtual repeat — and a striking Intermezzo third movement, show a young but confident composer. For the listener, the unending variety of expression — melodies moving cleverly from one instrument to another, the slow movement fugue that grows not in complexity but in clarity as the voices multiply — makes this quartet unforgettable.

Perhaps the most well crafted performance of the evening was Britten's Phantasy Quartet for Oboe and Strings. Artistic director Donna Cobert sat in on oboe, and Braun-Hill sat out. In one movement, the Phantasy establishes a march figure with the strings after an enigmatic solo cello opening. But the march figure, while continuous, is not repetitive, and the strings are not burdened with accompaniment, but join in as a true quartet.

The oboe even lays out for an extended period in the middle of the piece. With no easily recognizable structure, the work moves somewhat restlessly, from one inviting idea to the next. Cobert played with astute phrasing, bringing some of the trickier passages to life. Like the Mendelssohn quartet, the Phantasy ends exactly as it began — with the spare cello solo sketching out a minimal phrase.

Beethoven's three Razumovsky quartets form the chamber music centerpiece of middle period, when structures got shaken up and technical challenges increased. The ensemble played the second of the set, in E minor, a work that Edward Dusinberre of the Takacs Quartet said "inspires an exhilarating sense of danger" every time it's played.

Every performance can get better, but this reading had life and risk-taking energy. Buczek took over first chair, and played smartly, driving the quartet when the tempo threatened to slacken, especially in the Presto finale. That movement holds perhaps the most demanding section of this challenging work, a three-note motive that is passed repeatedly — with no dead air allowed — among the foursome. This group pulled it off with aplomb.

The next South Coast Chamber Music Society concert is a special one-performance event featuring guitarist Eliot Fisk on April 27 at Grace Episcopal Church in New Bedford. For tickets and information visit www.southcoastchambermusic.org.

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